uld have wakened at her slightest sound. He would have
seemed to know instinctively that she was there. She knocked again,
louder.

"Who's there?" a sleepy voice answered. Virginia felt a world of
impatience at the dull, drowsy tones. Harold had been able to sleep!
He wasn't worrying over Bill's safety.

"It's I--Virginia. I'm up and dressed. Did Bill come back?"

"Bill? No--and what in God's earth are you up this early for? Forget
about Bill and go back to bed."

"Listen, Harold," she pleaded. "Don't tell me to go back to bed. I
feel--I know something's happened to him. He couldn't have gone on
clear to the cabin in that awful snow; he either started back or camped.
In either case, he's in trouble--freezing or exhausted. And--and--I
want you to go out and look for him."

Harold was fully awake now, and he had some difficulty in controlling
his voice. In the first place he had no desire to rescue Bill. In the
second, he was angry and bitterly jealous at her concern for him. "You
do, eh--you'd like to send me out on a bitter night like this on a
fool's errand such as that. Where is there a cabin along the way--you'd
only kill me without helping him."

"Nonsense, Harold. You could take that big caribou robe and some food,
and if you had to camp out it wouldn't kill you. Please get up and go,
Harold." Her tone now was one of pleading. "Oh, I want you to----"

"Go back to bed!" But Harold remembered, soon, that he wasn't talking
to his squaw, and his voice lost its impatient note. "Don't worry about
Bill any more. He'll come in all right. I'm not going out on any
wild-goose chase like that--on a day such as to-day will be. You'll
see I'm right when you think about it."

"Think!" she replied in scorn. "If it were Bill he wouldn't stop to
think. He'd just act. You won't go, then?"

"Don't be foolish, Virginia."

Angry words rose in her throat, but she suppressed them. A daring idea
had suddenly filled her with wonder. It came full-grown: that she
herself should start forth into the snow deserts to find Bill herself.

Virginia had not been trained to self-reliance. Except for her northern
adventure, she had never been obliged to face difficulties, to care for
and protect herself, to work with her hands and do everyday tasks. To
build a fire, to repair a leaking tap, to take responsibility for
anything above such schoolday projects as amateur plays an social
gatherings would have see